by Marele Day
‘Should we wait?’
‘We will leave the fleece. If she is coming back, she will find the way. God keep her from harm,’ she whispered so that only God could hear.
‘And he?’ ventured Margarita.
‘Would you like him to come?’
‘He could visit from time to time. Like the priests of old.’
They made their way home. It was a fair evening with no rain. Iphigenia stayed all night in the chapel praying with Mary, the Mother of God, and St Anne her mother.
‘Gabriel, Uriel, Michael …’ Carla fairly ran up the hill, gathering the angels on the way. What a night, what a night, what a night! She had been to the world. She brought back with her a brown bottle and a weathered oar. By the time she had reached the island again the water had lapped up behind and covered her trace. But she knew where the strand was and how it appeared and disappeared. She could go across to the world any time she liked, she just had to wait till the path became visible.
She came in through the biscuity door, through the brambles, across the fields sparkling with dew and the courtyard smelling of bread. She knelt beside her sisters in the chapel, bursting with stories, bursting to tell.
In the days to come Iphigenia phoned Mr Colquhoun once again. ‘The Bishop has not changed his mind?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Thank you for everything you have done. Mr Colquhoun,’ said Iphigenia, ‘if you would like to visit us sometime, we would be pleased to see you.’ She couldn’t tell what Mr Colquhoun’s response was, so many crackles and gaps as the battery moved fitfully in and out of consciousness. When it wound down completely the phone became a relic to spend the rest of its days on the abbess’ desk.
They knitted the story of the priest, each working on her own piece then stitching them together till the story was complete.
Brambles grew over the door and soon it was winter again. A sudden sound, a buffeting of wind, the crack of a twig, would cause prayer to swell in their chests. In spring they set the table with forks, sat facing outwards, watching and waiting for visitors in the vast blue emptiness.
Father Ignatius was appointed undersecretary to the Congregation for Bishops and the following Easter joined his brethren in their red vestments, so close to the Holy Father he could have reached out and touched him. In the darkened church he feels the texture of the garment fashioned from his hair and their fleece, the round of days in the monastery, the pattern of their lives. And as the candles are lit and the Exsultet begins, he sees Carla walking towards him on the ribbon of light. And now Iphigenia and Margarita, the Agnes sisters, the Blessed Virgin, St Anne and the stained-glass saints, the worms and the birds. Shimmering.
That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.